Quotes by Courtney Milan

“If Ive learned anything, it's that we know next to nothing. Disease is a mystery. Health is inscrutable. The body itself is scarcely understood; we can only examine the secrets of the dead. And in ...”

“Why did you do it? Give up everything to raise another man's son?'His father did look up at that. 'I didn't raise another man's son,' he said sharply. 'I raised my own.”

“I adhere to the law of chastity because I dont believe in pushing women. Thats what it means to be a man. I dont hurt others simply to make myself feel superior. Gossip can ruin a woman as surely a...”

“When someone falls, Mark said, you dont throw her back down in the dirt. You offer her a hand up. Its the Christian thing to do.”

“Let them say what they wish behind your back. You need only be strong enough that they don't say it to your face.”

“I’ll be your friend in daylight. I’ll treat you as a comrade in every gas-lit ballroom. But alone, under moonlight, I’ll not pretend that I want you for anything but mine.”

“Over the years, everyone stumbles. That's why I'll be here for you — and you'll be there for me. I don't expect perfection. I want you, and you're a thousand times better.”

“Maybe that’s what I have been looking for. When storms and rockslides threaten, I am looking for someone who will hold on to me and not let go.”

“This is why people are so hard to understand. I cannot even estimate their gravitational pull.”

“If a man ever lets you know that he sees marriage as a trap, and women as nothing but scheming connivers, you are by no means to marry him. Any man that sees your entire sex in so harsh a light has...”

“One mustn’t justify day-to-day morality with extraordinary circumstances. Otherwise, we would all feel free to rape and murder at the drop of a cat.”

“A man must claim responsibility for his own temptation, and not pin it on the woman who arouses him. It’s a gown, Sir Mark. Not even one of my more daring ones.”

“I hated you,” she continued, “because you have done nothing more than abide by rules that every gentlewoman follows every day of her life. Yet for this prosaic feat, you are feted and cosseted as i...”

“Men touch their horses to calm them,” she said distantly. “They caress their falcons to remind them that they are bound. Touch smacks of ownership, and I am weary of being a possession.”

“What would one do if one were forced to choose between saving an innocent child’s life or engaging in unchaste behavior? This is, after all, the choice that some unfortunate women are put to—sell t...”

“She wagged a finger at him. “You’re mispronouncing that word.” “Your pardon?” He groped, trying to remember what he’d said. “Suffragette? How does one pronounce it, then?” “Suffragette,” she said, ...”

“He wasn't good with this sort of thing - with the back-and-forth dance between man and woman. He wasn't even sure if they were dancing, or if she was merely being polite.”

“His past followed him around as faithfully as his shadow.”

“I’d tell you to fetch a match, but you have always had your own spark.”

“Her lips found his and a stab of exquisite desire shot through him. This is what he's been waiting for all this time. Not a stolen embrace. A gift, freely given. One that he would keep forever in s...”